Problem with images on my computer

I was moving some pictures around on my computer, and when I clicked on them to see what they were they look like crap. These pics used to look decently crisp. The dark areas of almost every pic look almost like a charcoal drawing they're so bad, muddy, and grainy. They were NOT like this before, so I'm wondering if some kind of setting on my vid card got messed up or something.

So anyhow, I uploaded 2 pics to photobucket to show you guys what I was talking about, but they look fine on the site. I opened the pic on my PC that I JUST uploaded to photobucket and it's a freaking mess. I had that window opened right next to the photobucket pic and they are so different it almost doesn't even look like the same pic.

So my situation is this, when I view pics in folders, they look like crap...viewing them on the web, or even if I transfer them to my phone, they look fine. What the Hell can this be? The pics never looked bad like this before.

Thanks,
Ace

Perhaps it's a setting in the software that opens the image when viewing them on your PC that has gone awry. What do you use as your default image viewer?

A ha, great call! I was using the default "Windows Photo Gallery'. When I opened the pic in Irfan View, Paint, and IE it looks fine. I looked, but I don't even see a place to adjust the setting or options in WPG.

OK, I managed to find a way to 'restore defaults' in WPG (not that I changed anything in the first place), everything looks great again. Thanks Sorarse for throwing me in the right direction! Greatly appreciated!